The European Commission have adopted an adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) as a move to protect data of EU users.
The European Commission has determined that personal data transferred from the EU to the U.S. under the DPF will receive a level of protection equivalent to that in the EU. This means that participating U.S. companies can receive personal data without needing additional data protection measures.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an adequacy decision is a mechanism that allows the transfer of personal data from the EU to other countries. This decision is based on the assessment by the European Commission, which determines if these countries provide a level of data protection comparable to that of the European Union.
The DPF will also allow Europeans to report with regulators on unfair surveillance.
This is in relation to Meta which was fined 1.2 billion Euros for breaching data protection law when handling EU citizens’ data via its Facebook service.
Amazon was also fined in 2021 for not adhering to EU’s privacy laws.
Beyond the regulations surrounding the protection and privacy of personal data, data breaches have also been a key concern globally. A data breach is the unauthorised access/release of sensitive data/information.
Data breaches have recently impacted companies from different sectors and regions. Razer, a well-known gaming firm, encountered a possible data breach, with an unidentified individual on a hacker’s forum allegedly seeking to sell the stolen data for a sum of US$100,000 in cryptocurrency.
HCA Healthcare, among the largest companies in the United States, was also hit by a data breach where the affected data is currently up for sale. The extensive dataset, comprising around 27 million entries, encompasses highly sensitive information, including personal details of patients and records of their visits.
In Malaysia, Telekom Malaysia (TM) recently alerted their customers that a data breach have affected some of their customers.
